John  A.  Dix, 
Speech  on  War  with  Mexico 
1848, 

Contains  other  speeches 


Weldon  N.  Edwards 

and 

Marmaduke  J.Hawkins 
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SPEECH 


OF 

MR.  DICKINSON  OF  NEW  YORK, 

ox  <^ 

ESTABLISHING  A  GOVERNMENT  FOR  CALIFORNIA. 


DELIVERED  IX  THE  SENATE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES,  FEBRUARY  28,  1849. 


The  Civil  and  Diplomatic  Appropriation  Bill  having  been  reported  to  the  Senate  from  the 
Committee -of  the  Whole,  and  the  question  being  on  concurring  in  the  amendment  of  Mr.  Wal- 
ker in  relation  to  the  Territori^.  acquired  from  Mexico — 

Mr.  DICKINSON  said  :  I  do  not  forget,  Mr.  President,  nor  do  I  intend  the 
country  shall  forget,  that  more  than  six  months  have  rolled  away  since  the  Sen- 
ate,  after  mature  deliberation  and  full  debate,  passed  a  bill  erecting  efficient  civil 
Governments  in  the  Territories  of  New  Mexico  and  California,  and  sent  it  to 
the  House  of  Representatives  for  concurrence  ;  where  it  still  reposes  upon  the 
table  unacted  on;  though  by  the  joint  rules  of  the  two  Houses,  it  has  vitality 
at  this,  as  it  had  at  the  last  session,  and  needs  only  the  concurrence  of  that 
branch,  and  the  signature  of  the  President  to  become  a  law.    Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, had  1  been  left  to  consult  my  own  wishes. 'I  would  have  taken  no 
further  steps  until  the  immediate  representatives  of  the  people  should,  in  their 
wisdom,  so  far  sympathize  with  the  necessitous  condition  of  the  Territories  in 
question,  and  the  demands  of  the  people  throughout  the  Union,  as  to-  act  upon 
this  bill  which  we  sent  them,  and  either  pass  it  as  it  is,  or  with  amendments,  or 
reject  it  altogether.    The  responsibility  of  leaving  these  Territories  without  gov- 
eminent  has  heretofore  rested  with  the  popular  branch,  and  there  I  would  have 
left  it ;  for  I  am  confident  nothing  will  pass  there,  unless  it  contains  some  ele- 
ment of  discord  which  cannot  and  ought  not  to  receive  the  sanction  of  the  Sen- 
ate.    But  other  Senators,  whose  hopes  are  more  sanguine  than  my  own,  in  view 
of  the  peculiar  and  alarming  circumstances,  have  thought  proper  to  make  fur- 
ther  efforts,  and  to  that  end  have  brought  forward  various  propositions  for  the 
consideration  of  the  Senate  ;  some  giving  a  temporary,  and  some  a  more  perma- 
nent government  for  the  Territories,  and  among  them  that  of  the  Senator  from 
Wisconsin  (Mr.  Walker)  now  under  consideration.    It  is  now  at  the  close  of 
the  session,  and  the  last  hope  of  providing  a  government  rests  in  this  amend- 
ment: for,  if  it  is  not  adopted,  nothing  else  on  this  subject  will  be.    It  well  came 
as  an  offering  of  peace  from  that  young  and  cherished  State  which  has  just 
been  admitted  to  the  Union  ;  and  her  Senator  who  offers  it,  for  his  patriotic  de- 
vction,  is  entitled  not  only  to  the  thanks  of  his  constituents,  but  to  the  grateful  ac- 
knowledgments of  the  whole  people  of  the  Union. 

These  Territories,  with  the  inhabitants  residing  therein,  I  need  not  say,  were 
recently  transferred  by  a  foreign  Government  to  the  United  Sta'es,  under  a 
treaty  of  peace.  We  have  taken  them  from  their  former  government,  if  gov- 
ernment it  can  be  called,  to  our  protecting  arms,  and  since  it  is  our  practice  to 
fashion  governments  for  our  Territories,  we  are  admonished  by  every  considera- 
Towers}  printer,  corner  of  Louisiana  avenue  and  bth  street. 


2 


tion  that  can  influence  human  action,  to  extend  to  them  that  security  of  life,  lib- 
erty, and  property  which  our  Constitution  guaranties  to  the  humblest  American 
citizen.    The  amendment  under  consideration  attains  this  end  ;  and,  although  I 
would  have  preferred  it  in  another  place  and  in  another-  form,  it  being  this  or 
nothing,  I  have  cheerfully  yielded  all  objection  either  to  form  or  substance,  and 
shall  vote  hereafter,  as  I  have  before,  with  a  view  to  enact  it  into  a  law.  And 
I  crave  the  indulgence  of  the  Senate  for  a  few  moments  while  I  state  the  rea- 
sons which  influence  me — an  indulgence  I  would  not  have  sought,  but  for  the 
somewhat  extraordinary,  and,  as  I  think,  inconsistent  reasons  taken  against  it 
by  my  honorable  colieage.    The  leJading  objection  urged  in  this  regard  is,  that 
it  confers  too  much  power  upon  the  Executive  ;  and,  although  my  colleague  pro- 
fesses to  repose  high  confidence  in  the  distinguished  individual  who  is  soon  to 
be  invested  with  the  responsibility  of  the  Executive  functions,  he  declares  he 
'will  commit  to  the  hands  of  no  Chief  Magistrate  powers  so  extensive  and  plen- 
ary.   At  the  last  session  a  bill  was  under  consideration  conferring  no  unusual 
power  on  the  Executive,  and  this  one,too,  my  colleague  opposed  and  voted  against 
lor  other  reasons.  Under  other  and  ordinary  circumstances,  I  should  regard  a  pro- 
position of  this  kind  with  disfavor;  but  a  peculiar  emergency  has  arisen  in  our  his- 
tory, demanding  prompt  and  decisive  measures,  and  for  one  I  am  prepared  to 
meet  it  with  corresponding  action.    I  have  no  honeyed  phrases  for  the  ear  of 
the  incoming  President.    It  is  enough  for  me  that  1  have  done  him  no  injus- 
tice, in  thought,  word,  or  deed.    If  he  is  interested  to  know  my  sentiments  con- 
cerning him,  lie  will  best  learn  them  by  the  manner  in  which  1  discharge 
the  relations  in  which  we  are  soon  to  be  placed,  and  I  shall  judge  of  him  by  his 
public  and  official  conduct.    For  all  the  purposes  of  this  question,  I  wiii  not  in-r 
quire  upon  what  name  is  cast  the  powers  and  responsibilities  of  the  Executive,, 
nor  by  what  por  tion  of  the  people  elected.    I  shall  regard  him  only  as  the  great 
and  honored  agent  of  the  American  people,  upon  him  as  such  I  shall  seek 
to  devolve  the  duties,  and  in  him  as  such  I  shall  confide  for  their  discreet  and 
judicious  exercise  ;  holding  him  at  all  times,  as  those  whose  servant  he  is  will 
hold  him,  to  a  most  rigid  and  severe  accountability.    He  is  clothed  by  the  Con- 
stitution with  the  whole  power  of  the  army  and  navy  of  the  United  States,  of 
which  he  is  commander-in-chief,  and  in  that  capacity  will  wield  for  the  preser- 
vation of  order  in  these  Territories  all  that  is  arbitrary  and  despotic  in  our  insti- 
tutions, and  I  fear  not  to  mitigate  the  rigor  of  this  sanguinary  code  by  substitut- 
ing the  Constitution  for  the  sword,  the  minister  of  justice  for  the  bayoneted  sol- 
dier, and  the  rectifying  influences  of  the  common  law  for  military  rule.    It  is 
merely  permitting  the  President  temporarily,  and  until  Congress  shall  make  fur- 
ther provisions,  through  legal  and  constitutional  agencies,  to  extend  to  the  people 
civil  instead  of  military  government ;  for  the  purpose  of  enforcing  the  perform- 
ance of  contracts,  of  punishing  crime,  and  for  the  preservation  of  social  order,. 
And  when  its  propriety  is  rendered  obvious  by  circumstances  of  such  extreme 
urgencv,  I  shall  favor  it  with  my  whole  heart,  let  who  will  oppose,  and  for  what- 
ever reasons,  alleged  or  real.    Nor  can  those  consistently  resist  it  who  believe 
that  a  government  of  opinion  and  law  is  superior  in  its  moral  influences  to  a 
government  of  force.    Without  descending  to  details,  as  tedious  as  they  are 
profitless,  it  is  sufficient  for  my  purpose  to  say,  that  the  amendment  imder  con- 
sideration is  the  same  in  substance  as  the  laws  by  which  Florida  and  Louisiana 
were  successfully  governed  for  a  number  of  years  after  their  acquisition,  respec- 
tively, by  the  United  States.    They  were  acquired  as  were  New  Mexico  and 
California,  with  a  foreign  population.    Under  this  Executive  form  of  govern- 
ment prosperity  attended  them  ;  they  were  admitted  into  the  Union  as  equal 
members  of  the  Confederacy,  and  no  detriment  came  to  either  government  or 
people.    It  is  far  easier  to  cavil  over  and  multiply  objections  against  any  and 


3 


every  proposition  which  can  be  suggested,  than  to  procure  the  passage  of  some 
reasonable  measure  which  will  give  law  and  protection  to  those  which  haw 
neither. 

But  my  colleague,  in  detailing  his  reasons  for  opposing  this  amendment,  has 
employed  some  of  the  strongest  arguments  in  its  favor  ;  reasons  which  doubt- 
less  induced  its  introduction  in  this  form  by  the  Senator  who  moved  it.  He  re- 
minds us  that  the  inhabitants  residing  there  on  the  ratification  of  the  treaty  were 
a  semi  barbarous  race,  who  could  neither  read,  write,  speak,  nor  understand  our 
language  ;  that  they  are  utterly  unacquainted  with  the  character  of  our  institu- 
tions,  and  have  none  of  the  essential  qualifications  of  freemen  ;  that  the  tempo- 
rary inhabitants  and  those  who  have  migrated  there  are  many  of  them  deserters 
from  the  army  and  navy — outcasts  and  adventurers  from  all  parts  of  the  world, 
of  the  most  desperate  and  abandoned  character,  attracted  thither  by  a  spirit  of 
avarice,  without  the  moral  restraints  which  uphold  civilized  communities  ;  and 
that  the  bonds  of  society  are  virtually  dissolved.  And  yet,  when  this  is  the  last 
hope  of  extending  them  any  protection,  in  the  same  breath  he  inveighs  against 
giving  them  a  temporary  government  peculiarly  suited  to  their  anomalous  con- 
dition, and  strong  enough  to  hold  in  check  the  violence  and  anarchy  which  so 
alarmingly  prevail  there,  lest  it  may  not  be,  word  for  word  and  letter  for  letter,  as 
some  other  territorial  government,  at  some  other  time  and  under  some  other  cir- 
cumstances, has  been  ;  and  lest,  too,  more  power  may  be  temporarily-  confided 
to  the  President  than  ordinarily  would  be  prudent  or  desirable.'  He  tells  .-us  this, 
people  must  pass  through  the  process  of  fermentation,  to  employ  his  own  term, 
before  they  will  be  qualified  to  discharge  the  duties  of  citizens  ;  and  he  proposes 
to  encourage  that  process  by  administering  to  them  the  ordinance  of  1787..  This, 
he  seems  to  suppose,  would  at  once  put  their  fermental  qualities  in  motion?  and 
carry  off  all  physical,  moral,  and  political  impurities,  and  leave  them  fitted  ta 
discharge  understanding^  many,  if  not  all,  the  high  functions  of  self-govern- 
ment. They  are  now  depressed  and  degraded,  is  the  argument,  and  they  must 
be  raised,  by  the  leaven  of  this  celebrated  ordinance,  from  vice  and  barbarism 
and  ignorance  to  the  highest  privileges  of  freemen.  By  its  magic  influences  all 
shall  then  read,  write,  speak,  and  understand  our  language  and  comprehend  the 
spirit  of  our  institutions  ;  and  the  avaricious  aspirations  of  the  worshippers  of 
mammon,  who  are  digging  for  the  root  of  all  evil  upon  the  shores  of  the  Sacra- 
mento, shall  be  chastened  to  the  temper  and  quiet  of  the  most  self-denying  and 
orderly.  Empirics  in  medicine  usually  have  some  one  infallible  remedy  for  ail 
manner  of  diseases  which  afflict  our  nature,  whether  chronic  or  acute,  whether 
of  body  or  of  mind,  or  howsoever  originating  or  tending;  and,  I  say  it  with  be- 
coming respect,  disclaiming  all  application  of  the  remark  except  to  a  political 
organization  or  class,  the  ordinance  of  1787  is  by  some  prescribed  at  all  times 
and  upon  all  occasions  as  a  catholicon  for  all  political  ills  or  embarrassments  fa 
which  society  is  heir. 

But  amongst  other  propositions  submitted  to  the  Senate,  have  been  those  pro- 
viding for  the  admission  of  California  as  a  State.  One  of  these  has  been  before 
us.  It  was  ably  discussed  and  fully  considered,  and  was  rejected,  receiving  oniv, 
four  votes  in  its  favor  ;  and,  although  a  duplicate  is  yet  upon  our  orders,  no  one 
proposes  to  revive  it,  or  to  attempt  the  hopeless  task  of  breathing  into  it  life. 
My  colleague  has,  however,  thought  proper,  for  reasons  to  me  utterly  incompre- 
hensible, to  exhume  the  remains,  and  sabject  them  in  detail  to  a  post  mortem 
examination — a  process  evidently  distasteful  to  himself,  and  certainly  unneces- 
sary for  the  benefit  of  either  dead  or  living.  The  proposition  is  not  before  us  in 
form  or  substance,  in  whole  or  in  part,  and  is  not  to  be.  Whenever  it  or  a 
like  project  is,  it  will  be  soon  enough  for  me  to  discuss  it.  It  will  be  in 
season  for  me  to  justify  it  whenever  I  propose  to  vote  for  it  or  sustain  it  ;  but 


4 


ihe  meantime  I  shall  leave  it  to  its  repose,  and  shall  not  permit  objections, 
whether  of  form  or  substance,  whether  real  or  imaginary,  taken  against  that 
bill,  to  be  urged  against,  argued  into,  or  interwoven  with  the  provision  under 
consideration,  for  the  purpose  of  raising  a  prejudice  against  it,  when  the  two 
are  about  as  unlike  as  they  could  be  framed  in  the  same  language.  Accustomed 
£o  discuss  the  question  before  us,  I  cannot  consent  to  depart  from  my  usual 
course.  I  concede  the  victory  over  the  dead  bill,  under  the  circumstances,  to 
be  complete  and  triumphant,  and  as  easy  withal  as  was  that  of  a  distinguished 
warrior  over  his  celebrated  knights  in  buckram. 

He  further  informs  us  that  he  will  not  consent  to  the  dismemberment  of  Cali- 
fornia, or  to  play  towards  New  Mexico  the  part  of  Russia  and  other  Powers  to- 
wards Poland  !  Nor  will  I !  Nor  will  I  ever  consent  to  play  towards  our  Territo- 
ries  the  part  of  Great  Britain  to  the  American  colonies  !  And  does  he  inform  us 
who  will  do  what  he  disclaims  ?  Why,  I  inquire,  this  declaration  here  ?  Is  it 
pretended  that  this  amendment  proposes  any  merger  of  the  one  or  dismember- 
ment of  the  other,  or  any  thing  of  th.e  kind  1  Certainly  not ;  for  it  merely  pro- 
vides for  the  administration  of  law  and  the  preservation  of  order  in  the  whole 
territory  acquired  by  the  treaty,  until  Congress  shall  make  further  and  more 
ample  provisions.  If  it  is  intended  to  insinuate  that  those  who  favor  this 
amendment  would  either  merge  or  dismember,  the  remark  is  unjust.  If  a  mere 
abstract  declaration  of  patriotism,  quite  well,  but  at  least  gratuitous. 

But,  sir,  the  for-a-time  concealed  objection  against  providing  this  temporary 
government  has  finally  had  developement,  where  I  supposed  it  would,  in  the  agi- 
tation of  the  question  of  slavery.  I  listened  with  unfeigned  pleasure  to  the 
startling  appeals  against  the  danger  of  Executive  power  and  patronage  which 
this  amendment  proposed  to  confer,  and  to  other  criticisms  of  that  class,  well 
calculated  to  interest  the  Senate,  and  amuse  the  public.  I  experienced  a  mo- 
mentary gratification  that  some  other  bugbear  than  the  extension  of  slavery  had 
been  brought  out,  and  that  ?ome  other  dish  than  black  broth  was  to  be  served 
upv and  was  ready  to  exclaim  with  Macbeth,  "take  any  other  shape  than  that." 
It  soon,  however,  degenerated  to  the  same^old  cry,  which,  without  having  accom- 
plished one  good  or  humane  purpose,  has  for  the  last  few  years  arrestecHhe  legis- 
lation of  Congress,  and  served  to  array  one  section  of  the  Union  in  strife  and 
bitterness  against  the  other.  Upon  this  miserable  question,  which  is  all  that  has 
heretofore  prevented,  and  now  prevents  the  organization  of  these  Territories,  I 
propose  a  iew  general  considerations  ;  and  that  we  may  properly  appreciate  the 
present,  and  have  due  regard  for  the  future,  we  •  should  not  be  unmindful  of  the 
Mstory  of  the  past. 

When  a  portion  of  these  States  were  colonies  of  Great  Britain,  that  Gov- 
ernment insisted  upon  abolishing  the  Colonial  Legislatures,  and  subjecting 
our  people,  in  matters  that  concerned  their  domestic  condition,  to  the  legisla- 
tion of  Parliament ;  and  the  controversy  which  arose  over  this  question,  more 
than   any  other,  produced   that  revolution  which   resulted  in  declaring  the 
colonies  to  be  free  and  independent  States.    Not  only  were  they  free  and  inde- 
pendent of  other  Governments,  but  as  independent  of  each  other  as  they  were 
of  the  gigantic  Power  whose  acknowledgement  of  independence  they  had  con- 
quered.   Although  they  had  successfully  struggled  for  liberty,  by  a  united  effort 
in  a  common  cause,  and  were  bound  together  by  a  feeling  of  sympathy  and  of 
interest,  they  were  united  by  no  political  bonds  whatsoever,  and  no  single  State 
nor  any  number  had  the  right,  in  either  a  moral  or  political  sense,  to  interfere 
with  or  question  the  institutions  of  any  other.    Slavery  then  existed  in  all  the 
States,  and  it  was  easily  seen  that  while  it  would  speedily  be  abolished  in  some, 
from  natural  causes,  it  would  long  continue  in  others,  whether  or  not  a  union  of 
the  States  was  formed  ;  and  as  slavery  must  exist,  it  was  wisely  deemed  better 


5 

to  have  a  Union  with  slavery,  than  slavery  without  a  Union.  Its  existence  was 
then  as  now  deplored,  but  then  not  as  now  the  spirit  of  patriotism  rose  above  the 
spirit  of  a  sickly  philanthropy  and  local  benevolence,  and  the  patriots  of  that  day, 
with  the  spirit  of  the  revolution  upon  them,  saw  that  the  triumph  which,  under  the 
blessing  of  Heaven,  they  had  achieved,  would  be  best  secured,  and  the  general 
welfare  of  the  States  and  of  the  people  best  promoted,  by  uniting  together  in  one 
great  confederacy  for  purposes  specially  defined.  And,  animated  by  the  influen- 
ces which  impelled  them  onward,  the  Constitution,  which  binds  together  this 
family  of  sovereign  States,  and  secures  by  abundant  guaranties  the  rights  and 
interests  of  each  and  all,  was  formed  and  adopted,  and  still  each  State,  in  all  that 
concerns  its  domestic  condition,  is  as  sovereign  and  indeoendent  as  it  was  before. 
And  how,  from  that  auspicious  moment,  has  our  progress  been  upward  and  on- 
ward !  From  three  we  .have  advanced  to  twenty  millions  of  people — from  thir- 
teen to  thirty  sovereign  S^tes,  with  almost  boundless  territorial  possessions. 
Peace  and  prosperity  attend  us  ;  industry  is  amply  rewarded  ;  labor  is  not  bur- 
dened ;  want  and  famine  are  unknown  ;  we  are  respected  among  the  great  na- 
tions of  the  earth  ;  and,  so  far  as  has  been  vouchsafed  to  fallen  man.  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  are  secured  to  all.  Haman  could  not  enjoy  the 
honors  and  blessings  with  which  he  was  laden,  because  Mordecai  the  Jew  was 
permitted  to  sit  at  the  king's  gate  ;  and,  like  that  envious  and  malignant  demon, 
there  are  those  amongst  us  to  whom  all  these  blessings  avail  nothing,  so  long 
as  a  portion  of  the  States  continue,  under  the  guaranties  of  the  Constitution,  that 
which  existed  in  all  at  the  time  the  Confederacy  was  formed;  and  they  openly 
demand  and  deliberately  petition  that  the  Union  be  dissolved  for  this  cause  alone, 
I  am  aware  it  will  be  said  that  this  extreme  and  frantic  outcry  proceeds  only 
from  a  few  madmen  and  fanatics,  and  is  the  joint  effort  of  the  weak  and  the 
wicked,  and  that- those  who  are  now  in  the  incipient  stages  of  the  same  disease 
do  not  propose  to  follow  them,  and  only  oppose  the  further  extension  of  slavery. 
But  it  was  only  yesterday,  as  it  were,  that  many  of  those  who  now  cry  loudest 
and  go  furthest  were  where  others  have  commenced  ;  and  again,  to-morrow, 
those  who  have  just  taken  their  first  lessons  will  find  themselves  where  others 
who  have  travelled  in  the  same  direction  have  gone  before  them.  It  has  been 
unfortunately  discovered  that  "the  ambitious  youth  who  fired  the  Ephesian  dome 
survived  in  fame  the  pious  fool  who  reared  it,"  and  a  thirst  for  notoriely  has 
been  the  order  of  the  day.  For  three  years  we  have  been  unable  to  organize 
a  territory,  to  pass  a  bill  of  appropriation,  to  declare  war,  to  feed  and  clothe  a 
famishing  army,  or  to  ratify  a  treaty  of  peace,  without  encountering  in  our  path- 
way the  hideous  and  hag  like  shadow  of  slave  agitation.  Even  this  attempt  to 
give  to  an  unprotected  people  the  temporary  benefits  of  law  and  order  is  resisted 
in  the  same  quarters  and  by  the  same  arguments  and; influences  that  others  have 
been,  and  my  colleague  tells  us  he  can  vole  for  no  bill  unless  it  oontains  the 
provisions  of  the  ordinance  of  1787.  This,  like  the  voracious  rod  of  Aaron, 
with  him,  swallows  up  all  other  considerations.  By  way,  doubtless,  of  investing 
it  with  additional  consideration,  he  has  given  us  the  benefit  of  its  history,  and 
shows  that  Mr.  Jefferson  proposed  one  of  a  similar  character  in  1734,  which 
was  not  adopted.  I  will  spend  no  time  in  commenting  upon  the  historic  tru- 
isms, with  which  it  is  sought  to  surround  and  magnify*  this  provision  and  the  pro- 
ceedings in  which  it  originated  ;  for  it  has,  in  my  judgment,  no  more  application 
to  our  present  condition,  as  mere  authority,  than  an  extract  of  equal  length  froir. 
the  Koran  of  Mahomet.  But  my  colleague  has  seen  the  orignal  draught  of  the 
one  offered  by  Mr.  Jefferson  which  was  rejected,  and  is  able  to  testify  that  it  is 
actually  in  the  handwriting  of  that  distinguished  statesman.  W  ell,  suppose  it  is. 
However  interesting  this  may  be  to  the  curious  in  such  matters,  and  especially 
to  the  collectors  of  autography,  I  am  yet  unable  to  perceive  what  practical  value 


6 


k  affords  for  the  purposes  in  question.  Suppose  it  could  be  found  in  the  lan- 
guage of  inspiration,  in  the  original  Hebrew,  and  in  the  handwriting  of  a  pro- 
phet or  an  apostle,  this  ought  not  td,  and  would  not,  with  those  who  judge  of  a 
matter  by  what  it  contains  rather  than  the  source  from  which  it  comes,  give  it 
any  additional  fitness  for  a  purpose  entirely  foreign  to  that  for  which  it  was  pre- 
pared and  proposed,  and  to  which  it  has  not  now,  and  never  had,  any  just  appli- 
cation  whatsoever. 

The  ordinance  proposed  by  Mr.  Jefferson  in  1784,  which  was  rejected,  and 
that  which  was  proposed  by  Mr.  Dane,  of  Massachusetts,  and  others,  and  was 
adopted  in  1787,  were,  it  will  be  seen,  proposed  before  the  States  were  united 
ander  a  Constitution,  and  while  our  fathers  were  groping,  by  the  dim  lights 
which  the  history  of  that  period  afforded,  for  some  plan  of  confederacy  by  which 
the  territory  in  question,  ceded  or  to  be  ceded  by  particular  States,  for  the  benefit 
of  all,  should  be  governed.  There  was  then  no  Constitution  creating  the  Federal 
Government  and  defining  and  limiting  its  powers,  and  it  was  competent  for  in- 
dividual States  ceding  their  territory  to  prescribe  such  terms  and  provisions  as 
they  should  choose,  and  for  the  States  generally,  by  such  special  agreement  or 
compact  as  they  could  unite  upon,  to  specify  the  terms  and  conditions  on  which 
the  ceded  territory  should  be  governed.  It  was  a  contract  proposed  to  be  enter- 
ed into  by  all  the  parties  interested,  and  as  such  derived  all  its  character  and 
force.  And  now,  because  a  certain  agreement  was  made  by  the  parties  inter- 
ested for  the  government  of  the  Northwestern  Territory,  ceded  by  particular 
States  for  the  benefit  of  all,  before  we  had  a  Constitution  to  guide  us,  it  is  in- 
sisted that,  under  the  Constitution,  from  which  Congress  derives  all  its  authority, 
and  in  which  no  such  power  is  specified,  Congress  shall  do,  as  a  matter  of  right, 
m  defiance  of  the  protest  of  a  portion  of  the  States,  to  the  common  property,  that 
which  was  done  by  the  consent  of  all,  including  the  sole  owner,  before  the  Con- 
stitution was  adopted.  The  difference,  when  properly  illustrated,  being  simply 
this:  Three  individuals  enter  into  an  agreement  for  their  mutual  benefit  and 
advantage,  and  abide  by  its  provisions.  Three  others  of  equal  rights,  under 
other  circumstances,  not  being  able  to  agree  satisfactorily,  two  of  them,  finding 
that  an  agreement  had  once  been  voluntarily  made  by  three,  insist  that  the  pre- 
cedent ought  to  be  followed,  and  compel  the  third  by  force  to  submit  to  their 
terms.  Besides,  if  there  is  any  particular  charm  belonging  to  this  ordinance 
which  entitles  it  to  be  adopted,  whether  applicable  or  not  to  our  condition,  it 
should  be  taken  as  a  whole — in  all  its  parts  and  with  all  its  provisions.  One  of 
■these  is  as  follows,  and  its  perusal  will,  show  the  utter  absurdity  of  its  applica- 
tion to  our  present  condition  : 

"  That  both  the  temporary  and  permanent  Governments  shall  be  established  on  these  princi- 
ples as  their  basis;  that  they  shall  be  subject  to  pay  a  part  of  the  Federal  debts,  contracted  or  to 
be  contracted,  to  be  apportioned  on  them  by  Congress  according  to  the  same  common  rule  and 
measure  by  which  apportionments  thereof  shall  be  made  on  the  other  States." 

A  proposal  at  this  time  to  impose  upon  the  temporary  Government  of  a  Ter- 
ritory a  portion  of  the  federal  debts,  contracted  or  to  be  contracted,  would  be 
universally  received  throughout  the  Union  with  derision  and  indignation;  and 
yet  it  may  be  as  fairly  insisted  upon  as  a  valuable  precedent  of  binding  authority 
as  any  other  provision  of  the  ordinance.  We  must  not  go  forward,  but  all  legis- 
lation must  be  arrested  until  the  burial-field  of  deceased  documents  can  be  ran- 
sacked, and  the  marrowless  bones  of  the  ordinance  of  '87  be  clothed  anew  with 
flesh  and  sinews,  that  it  may  perform,  regardless  of  the  Constitution,  an  office  it 
was  designed  to  discharge  without  one.  We  must  be  dragged  back  from  a  per- 
fect Union  to  a  patched-up  Confederacy,  and  our  mature  manhood  of  this  cen- 
iury  be  cramped  and  fettered  by  the  swaddling  habiliments  of  the  infant  of  a 
past  one.    Anarchy  must  reign,  and  bloodshed  and  crime  and  disorder  triumph 


7 


in  the  Territories,  until  we  can  demonstrate  a  political  problem  from  some  musty 
precedent,  and,  instead  of  acting  for  ourselves,  as  the  occasion  requires,  we 
must  try  to  ascertain  how  others  have  acted  at  some  other  time,  upon  some  other 
occasion,  that  we  may  act  like  them. 

But  it  seems  that  the  cognomen  by  which  this  ordinance  has  recently  been 
known,  and  under  which  it  has  transacted  a  somewhat  extensive  business,  is  no 
longer  deemed  desirable,  and  that  a  change,  which  is  seldom  sought  for  slight 
or  transient  causes,  has  been  thought  prudent,  if  not  necessary.  My  honorable 
colleague,  feeling  an  interest  in  the  success  and  welfare  of  this  deceased  pape 
not  only  burst  its  cerements  and  brought  it  up  again  to  revisit  earth,  bit  him- 
self led  it  to  the  political  font,  and  performed  the  priestly  ritual  of  christening  it 
the  "Jefferson  proviso!"  If  the  illustrious  and  venerated  statesman  whose 
impress  rests  upon  all  that  is  enduring  and  beautiful  in  our  political  system  could 
so  far  participate  in  the  affairs  of  the  living  as  to  see  his  acts  for  good  perverted 
to  pernicious  purposes  ;  hear  his  memory  desecrated  by  associating  his  history 
with  this  causeless  agitation  ;  his  authority  invoked  for  casting  amongst  us  this 
apple  of  bitterness  and  discord ;  and,  finally,  hear  those  who  would  still 
fan  the  fires  of  disunion,  disturb  his  repose  by  calling  upon  his  great  and 
spotless  name,  he  would  exclaim,  as  did  the  prophet,  raised  by  the  incan- 
tations of  the  familiar  spirit,  fewhen  the  guilty  Saul  would  have  escaped  from 
*  the  consequences  of  his  perfidious  career,  "  why  hast  thou  disquieted  me  to 
bring  me  up?"  My  colleague  is  proverbial  for  his  strong  sense  of  justice, 
and  his  scrupulous  regard  for  the  rights  of  property,  and  yet  he  has,  quite  un- 
consciously, I  am  sure,  proposed  to  do  an  act  which  must  be  a  violation  of  both — 
an  act  which  his  generous  instincts  will  prompt  him  to  correct  the  first  moment 
he  sees  the  consequences  which  must  ensue.  He  is  well  versed  in  classic  and 
political  readings  :  the  first  of  which  must  have  taught  him  that  Mark  Antony 
gave  up  all  for  women,  and  the  latter  that  a  distinguished  individual  gave  up  all 
else  that  the  "  proviso"  might  bear  his  name  ;  and  yet  he  coolly  proposes  to 
transfer  this  name,  with  all  its  accumulated  honors  and  invaluable  advantages, 
to  another.  Sir,  in  the  name  of  common  justice,  I  most  solemnly  protest  against 
this  marked  and  wanton  violation  of  private  and  individual  tight.  Call  it  the 
44  Jefferson  Proviso!"  Should  this  be  attempted,  the  person  by  whose  name 
it  has  been  known  might  cry  out  somewhat  in  the  language  of  lago — 

"  Who  steals  my  purse,  steals  trash  ;  'tis  something,  nothing  ; 
'Twas  mine,  'tis  his  ;  and  has  been  slave  to  thousands. 
But  he  that  filches  from  me  my  proviso, 
Robs  me  of  that  which  not  enriches  him, 
And  makes  me  po»r  indeed." 

My  colleague,  notwithstanding  the  degraded  and  disorderly  condition  and  unfit 
character  for  self-government  which  he  attributes  to  the  people  of  these  Territo- 
ries, would  give  them  a  full  territorial  government  if  it  could  contain  his  favor- 
ite clause  of  restriction.  Now,  a  full  territorial  government,  as  heretofore  given, 
authorizes  the  election  by  the  people  of  a  territorial  legislature,  and  the  passage 
by  such  legislature  of  their  municipal  laws,  usually,  but  not  always,  subject  to 
the  supervision  of  Congress  ;  and  in  these  relations  it  will  be  seen  that  they  are 
called  upon  to  exercise  some  of  the  highest  privileges  of  freemen.  If,  then,  they 
are  so  ignorant,  degraded,  and  barbarous  as  to  be  unfit  for  any  of  the  duties  of 
self-government,  why  propose  to  require  them  at  their  hands,  or  object  to  the 
preservation  of  order  in  a  more  summary  form,  until  they  shall  be  better  quali- 
fied ?  But,  in  arguing  the  justice  and.  propriety  of  applying  the  restriction  to 
the  organization  of  a  territorial  government,  he  states  that  Congress  stands  in 
the  same  relation  to  the  people  of  a  Territory  that  the  State  Legislatures  do  to 
the  people  of  a  State.    From  this  doctrine  I  respectfully  but  most  unqualifiedly 


8 


dissent,  and  insist  that  the  relations  are  entirely  dissimilar.  The  State  Legis- 
latures are  the  creations  of  the  people  of  the  respective  States.  The  members 
of  the  State  Legislature  are  elected  by  the  people  of  the  State,  and  are  their 
representatives  and  servants;  but  no  such  relation  exists,  or  has  ever  existed, 
between  Congress  and  the  people  of  a  Territory.  Congress  is  not  created  by 
the  people  of  the  Territory.  They  have  no  vote  in  it ;  its  members  are  not 
elected  by,  nor  are  they,  the  servants  or  the  representatives  of  the  people  of  the 
Territories,  or  in  the  remotest  degree  answerable  to  them.  Congress  holds  the 
same  relation  to  the  people  of  the  Territories  that  the  British  Parliament  held 
to  the  American  colonies  ;  and  the  doctrines  sought  to  be  enforced  by  those  who 
advocate  the  restrictive  policy  are  the  same  old  exploded  theories  of  George  III, 
against  which  our  fathers  rebelled,  dressed  up  in  new  clothes,  that  the  imposition 
may  be  the  more  successful.  The  principle  that  a  distant  people,  in  the  forma- 
tion of  a  Government,  need  a  master  to  administer  restrictions  to  preserve  them 
from  running  headlong  to  ruin  in  their  policy,  is  founded  in  a  distrust  of  popular 
intelligence  and  virtue  ;  and,  whether  emanating  from  an  Eastern  despotism,  the 
British  Parliament,  or  the  American  Congress,  violates  the  first  principles  of 
free  Government,  and  seeks  to  rule  a  people  rather  than  permit  them  to  rule 
themselves.  The  American  people,  when  colonies,  being  no  further  from  the 
mother  country  than  our  Pacific  possessions  are  from  us,  insisted,  to  revolution 
and  blood,  upon  the  right  to  legislate  for  themselves  ;  and  now,  shouM  they  seek 
to  enforce  the  same  doctrine  upon  the  people  of  their  own  Territories,  they  would  # 
be  like  him  who,  after  his  own  debt  was  forgiven  him,  took  his  fellow-servant  by 
the  throat  that  he  might  enforce  the  payment  of  a  two- penny  demand. 

I  have  urged,  for  the  government  of  the  Territories,  when  a  sufficient  number 
of  American  cifizens  or  others  who  can  appreciate  the  obligations  of  freemen 
shall  be  there,  a  free  Territorial  Government — not  that  kind  of  freedom  which, 
with  liberty  on  its  lips,  distrusts  the  capacity  of  man  for  self-governmen(,  and 
seeks  to  hedge  him  about  witlr  provisos  and  restrictions  ;  nor  that  freedom  which 
must  be  kept  in  leading  strings,  held  by  some  master  power  three  thousand  miles 
distant,  lest  man  shall  care  less  for  himself  than  his  distant  fellows  shall  care  for 
him,  and  be  less  wise  in  governing  himself  than  others  would  be  in  acting  as 
his  governor ;  but  that  freedom  which  springs  from  the  best  instincts  of  the 
heart,  and  believes  that  man  is  better  qualified  to  Yule  himself  than  to  govern 
his  neighbor.  The  Constitution  has  given  no  authority  to  Congress  to  legislate 
for  the  peojile  of  a  Territory,  and  consequently  it  has  no  such  right ;  and  Mr. 
Madison  has  pronounced  any  such  attempt  to  be  without  the  shadow  of  constitu- 
tional law.  But,  in  legislating  for  the  property  of  territories,  which  Congress  may 
do,  and  in  aiding  the  infant  settlements  to  erect  their  government,  Congress  has 
prescribed  general  enactments,  serving  as  constitutions  for  the  people  of  the 
Territory  rather  than  laws,  and  has  sent  out  officers  to  aid  in  enforcing  them. 
This  course  has  in  all  cases  been  received  with  favor  by  the  people  of  the  Ter- 
ritories ;  they  have  adopted  as  their  own  what  Congress  has  been  pleased  to 
send  them,  and  have  framed  their  own  local  laws,  from  time  to  time,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  legislation  of  Congress.  The  whole  doctrine  of  a  just  Gov- 
ernment, according  to  the  republican  theory,  consists  in  the  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned ;  and  any  other,  no  matter  by  what  name  it  is  known,  is  despotism  and 
slavery.  And  it  is  from  the  consent  of  the  people  of  the  Territory,  and  the  ac- 
quiescence of  the  States,  that  this  usage  has  derived  all  its  force.  But  those 
who  advocate  restriction  seek  to  repudiate  this  principle  of  true  self-government, 
and  then  proclaim  it  too  feeble  for  the  sphere  of  its  duties.  I  do  not  contend  that 
the  people  of  a  Territory  have  sovereign  power  as  a  Government,  because  the 
sovereignty  of  a  Government  as  such  is  a  creation  of  man.  But,  as  man  de- 
rives his  sovereignty  from  his  Maker,.!  insist  that  the  people  of  a  Territory  aref 


9 


as  much  sovereign  there,  as  in  a  State,  (unless,  which  will  not  be  contended,  they 
may  lose  their  birthright  by  residing  in  a  Territory.)  and  in  all  that  concerns  o: 
relates  to  their  domestic  condition,  should,  in  conformity  with  our  federative  sys= 
tern  and  the  principle  of  self-government,  be  permitted  to  make  their  own  tem- 
porary regulations  of  domestic  policy — of  course  in  harmony  with  the  principles 
of  the  Constitution  and  the  rights  of  the  States.  This  would  give  to  the  people 
of  the  Territories  the  rights  that  belong  to  them  ;  would  turn  the  vexatious  and 
agitating  question  of  slavery  out  of  Congress,  where  it  has  no  business,  and 
should  never  have  entered,  and  leave  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  States  upon 
this  question  to  be  decided  by  the  judicial  tribunals,  when  any  one  shall  see  fit  to 
raise  it.  To  this  complexion  it  must  come  ;  for,  if  the  Constitution  confers  the 
right  to  carry  slaves  to  a  Territory,  all  the  acts  which  Congress  can  pass  forever 
cannot  take  away  the  right,  nor  transfer  it  to  other  tribunals.  It  is  a  judicial 
question,  and  must  be  disposed  of  as  the  Constitution  has  provided. 

In  further  proceeding  with  his  argument  in  favor  of  the  restrictive  principle, 
my  colleague  describes  slavery  as  amongst  the  greatest  evils,  both  apparent  and 
real,  that  can  afflict  and  debase  a  people  ;  and  yet  he  will  not  trust  our  brethren, 
friends  and  neighbors,  who  are  emigrating  there  in  thousands  from  the  Northern 
States,  who  will  shape  the  destinies  of  this  country,  and  control  the  course  of  its 
legislation,  and  are  as  well  qualified  to  legislate  as  the  people  of  the  States  who 
they  have  left  behind  them,  lest  they  may.  against  their  own  interests,  wishes, 
and  convenience,  erect  slavery  there  in  spite  of  themselves.  Does  he  not  fear 
the  people  of  Xew  York  will  re-establish  it?  There  is  no  proviso  to  prevent, 
them  from  doing  so  whenever  they  please  ;  and  perchance  our  friends,  when 
they  reach  California,  and  will  be  no  further  from  us  than  we  are  from  them,  may 
have  fears  about  equally  just  that  slavery  may  be  again  authorized  in  the  North- 
ern States.  Besides,  while  seeking  to  protect  them  from  themselves  against  this 
great  and  overshadowing  evil,  if  they  are  indeed  incapable  of  self-government 
and  self-preservation,  there  are  some  of  minor  moment  to  which  they  must  stand 
exposed  ;  and  I  would  suggest  to  those  who  believe  in  governing  other  commu- 
nities that,  they  should  be  exempted  by  law  from  drowning  by  the  waters  of  the 
Pacific,  and  from  destruction  by  fire  ;  or,  as  the  poet  expresses  it,  from  "  sinking 
in  the  devouring  flood,  or  more  devouring  flame." 

We  have  been  told  in  this  debate,  what  I  have  often  heard  before,  that  those 
who  are  constantly  agitating  this  question  have  no  intention  of  interfering  witb 
slavery  in  the  States.  Oh,  no  !  as  though  a  forbearance  so  generous  was  en- 
titled to  great  commendation.  And  what  merit,  pray  tell,  is  claimed  for  this  i 
Would  any  one  take  to  himself  credit  because  he  did  not  enter  the  jurisdiction 
of  a  sovereign  State  and  trample  upon  its  laws,  and  subject  himself  to  a  charge 
of"  felony,  and  set  himself  up  to  regulate  the  standard  of  its  political  and  social 
morals,  and  claim  the  right  to  overthrow  that  which  he  disliked  and  help  himself 
to  whatever  he  should  desire  1  He  certainly  would  not ;  and  yet  he  would  have 
as  good  a  right  to  do  all  this,  in  a  moral  or  political  sense,  as  he  would  to  inter- 
fere with  this  institution  in  the  States  where  it  exists  by  law.  Why  are  we  not 
also  told,  if  there  is  a  merit  in  abstaining  from  matters  in  which  we  have  no  con- 
cern, that  there  is  no  intention  to  interfere  with  the  manufacturing  system  o: 
Massachusetts,  or  the  banking  in  Indiana,  or  the  rights  of  primogeniture  in 
England,  or  the  Republican  Government  in  France  ?  We  have  as  much  right 
to  dq  either  as  we  have  to  interfere  in  any  respect  with  the  domestic  affairs  of  a 
sovereign  State. 

The  great  mass  of  the  Northern  people,  and  I  speak  of  the  peop.e  01  New 
York,  are  less  excited  upon  the  subject  of  slavery  than  would  appear  from  the 
declarations  of  those  who  claim  the  right  to  speak  for  them.    They  regar:1  •• 
very  as  an  evil,  but  they  know  that  it  is  not  now  and  was  not  at  the  adoption  of 


io 


■the  Constitution  an  original  question ;  but  was,  as  my  colleague  has  stated,  L 
planted  here  while  we  were  subjects  of  the  British  Crown,  against  the  wishes 

and  without  the  consent  of  the  colonies.    New  York  abolished  slavery  herself  c, 

when  it  suited  her  own  sense  of  propriety  and  her  interest,  wishes,  and  conve-,  ;a 

nience,  without  the  gratuitous  and  impertinent  interference  of  other  States,  or  f 

the  officious  dictation  of  Congress.    And  the  mass  of  her  people  are  willing  u 

other  States  shall  foll©w  her  example,  when  in  like  manner  it  shall  seem  to  « 

them  "best :  and  they  believe  such  States  to  be  the  most  proper  judges  in  the  0I 

premises.    They  have  no  doubt  that  emancipation  has  been  retarded  in  a  number  foj 

by  the  ill-timed  proceedings  and  intermeddlings  of  fanaticism  and  bigotry.   They  r 

believe  that  the  advantages  and  burdens,  the  good  and  the  evil,  the  responsibility  ;,: 
Ibere  and  the  responsibility  hereafter,  belong  to  the  States  where  it  exists  and 

not  to  them  ;  that  they  are  not  entitled  to  reap  the  fruits  of  its  labor,  nor  re-  0 

quired  to  care  for  its  endless  vexations,  nor  to  answer  for  its  sins.    Having  j; 

abolished  it  themselves,  they  do  not,  like  the  Pharasee,  thank  God  that  ihey  are  y, 

not  as  other  men ;  but  they  believe  the  people  of  the  Southern  States  as  intelli-  '  t\ 

gent  and  as  virtuous  as  themselves,  and  as  regardful  of  the  principles  of  sound  a 

morality,  just  law,  and  pure  religion.    They  see  that  this  great  matter  cannot  j  - 

be  hastily  disposed  of;  that  the  mere  question  whether  they  shall  be  emancipa-  \ 

ted  or  longer  held  in  servitude,  were  it  practicable,  is  but  a  single  verse  in  the  r 

dark  and  difficult  chapter  of  its  history;  and  that  it  is  wiser  to  leave  it  to  the  I  c 

guidance  of  those  whose  institution  and  property  it  is,  and  who  have  a  right  to  t, 
control  it,  under  the  benificent  care  of -that 

"  Providence  that  shapes  our  ends,  a 
Rough  hew  them  how  we  will." 

Nor  have  the  great  mass  of  the  Northern  people  any  desire  to  interfere  with  ] 
this  institution,  under  some  plausible  pretence,  for  the  purpose  of  accomplishing  , 
by  circuity  and  indirection  that  which  they  have  not  the  manliness  to  attempt  j 
openly ;  and  hence  they  will  not,  under  the  plea  of  preventing  the  extension  of  ; 
slavery,  set  on  foot  and  prosecute  a  bootless  guerrilla  warfare  of  irritation  against  j  f 
their  sister  States  by  agitating  the  question  of  slavery  in  the  Territories,  in  the  | 
District  of  Columbia,  or  in  the  arsenals,  navy  yards,  and  other  places  where  | 
Congress  has  jurisdiction.    They  read,  too,  in  the  Constitution  that  fugitives 
held  to  service  by  the  laws  of  one  State  escaping  into  another  are  to  be  deliv- 
ered up  to  the  jurisdiction  from  whence  they  fled,  not  to  be  enslaved,  if  they  are 
freemen,  as  is  the  cant  phrase  of  the  times,  but  to  have  their  rights  adjudicated 
by  the  laws  of  the  State  where  the  service  is  claimed.    All  reflecting  men  must 
see  and  know  that  it  is  as  much  a  violation  of  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Consti- 
tution, in  the  sight  of  God  and  in  the  judgment  of  men,  to  harbor  and  secrete  a 
fugitive  from  the  laws  of  a  State  which  held  him  to  service  as  to  shelter  and 
protect  a  fugitive  from  justice,  and  that  the  one  is  no  less  questionable  in  expe- 
diency or  flagrant  in  morals  than  the  other.    These  provisions  are  clearly  written 
in  our  fundamental  law,  and  he  who  violates  them  or  either  of  them,  under  the 
shallow  justification  that  they  are  of  no  moral  force,  violates  the  primary  duties 
of  citizenship  and  commits  treason  against  his  Government.    They  see  and 
know  that  they  cannot  elevate  this  unfortunate  race,  either  as  individuals  or  as 
a  people,  by  the  angry  agitation  of  the  question,  or  by  harboring  and  secreting 
fugitive  slaves,  and  that  the  only  fruits  produced  by  it  will  be  to  multiply  wretch- 
ed outcasts  and  swell  the  volume  of  misery,  pauperism,  and  crime — to  add  phy- 
sical want  and  suffering  to  moral  ana1  mental  depression,  increase  the  number  of 
vagabonds,  and  literally  degrade  degradation.    The  North,  as  a  people,  want 
not  this  race  among  them,  as  is  suggested  by  this  bastard  philanthropy.  They 
want  not  the  sick,  the  decrepit,  and  the  infirm  to  be  supported  in  their  poor- 
houses  ;  nor  the  vicious  and  immoral  for  their  prisons  ;  nor  the  few  whose  in- 


11 


tegrity  and  health  shall  survive  a  transition  from  a  genial  to  a  rigorous  clime — 
from  a  long  state  of  tutelage  to  one  of  self-preservation  and  self-dependence — to 
come  among  them  without  social  or  political  rights,  to  degrade  the  honest  white 
laborers  of  the  North  by  mingling  with  them  and  competing  for  their  labor. 
'They  see  that  two  races  of  men  so  dissimilar  in  physical  development,  whether 
as  slaves  or  freemen,  cannot  exist  together  upon  terms  of  equality  without  de- 
grading both.  Heaven  has  so  ordained  and  man  cannot  subvert  the  decree — 
one  will  be  elevated  and  the  other  degraded.  A  woe  has  been  pronounced  upon 
him  who  shall  sever  what  God  hath  joined,  and  a  like  one  should  be  proclaimed 
against  him  who  joins  that  which  Heaven  by  such  marked  physical  laws  has 
sundered. 

We  have  heard  many  pceans  sung  to  the  dignity  of  free  labor,  and  have  been 
often  told  of  the  especial  regard  which  slave  agitators  of  all  others  entertain  for 
it.  But  let  it  be  remember.ed  that  their  whole  effort  has  the  effect,  if  it  has  not 
the  benefit  of  the  design,  to  infuse  among  the  free  white  laborers  of  the  North 
the  fumes  of  free  negroism,  with  its  moral  and  political  beauties,  and  introducing 
.among  them  the  fugitive  slaves  of  the  Southern  States  and  the  emancipated  ne- 
groes of  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  degrading  the  poor  white  men  of  the 
North  to  the  level  of  the  black.  Nor  do  the  people  of  New  York,  generally, 
indulge  that  kind  of  benevolence  which,  as  has  been  heretofore  suggested,  would 
confine  the  colored  race  within  boundaries  so  limited  that,  by  suffering,  impo- 
tency^  barrenness,  and  death,  the  whole  race,  as  existing,  thall  be  exterminated. 
They  are  willing  the  colored  race  should  go  out  into  any  community  who  are 
anxious  or  willing  to  receive  them.  The  direction  to  man  to  replenish  the  earth 
was  not  limited  in  its  operation  by  Him  who  gave  it  to  any  particular  race  or  color. 
But  modern  benevolence  essays  to  correct  the  error;  and,  not  satisfied  with 
placing  restrictions  upon  the  laws  of  man,  proposes  to  extend  a  proviso  to  this 
mandate  of  Heaven,  and  to  confine  the  multiplication  hereafter  to  the  while  race 
alone.  Let  not  the  great  mass  of  the  Northern  people  be  held  responsible  for 
the  slavery  agitation  which  is  carried  on  in  their  name — originating  in  the  mis- 
taken benevolence  and  dark  designs  of  a  few,  and  yielded  to  and  fostered  by 
timid  and  time-serving  politicians,  who  hold*  the  people  as  weak  and  irrational 
as  themselves,  and  believe  them  capable  of  hazarding  *he  integrity  of  the  Union 
lest,  against  existing  legal  and  physical  impediments,  there  shall  purchance  be 
one  dark  skin  less  in  Maryland  and  one  more  in  California. 

I  am  too  well  aware  that  all  who  advocate  the  doctrine  of  non-interference, 
who  stand  up  for  the  sovereign  rights  of  the  States  and  the  guaranties  of  the 
Constitution,  must  breast  the  blind  fury  of  a  fearful  storm,  and  be  covered  over 
with  epithets  of  bitterness  and  opprobium.  He- is,  say  they,  a  friend  to  the  ex- 
tension of  slavery ;  he  is  sold  to  the  South  ;  he  is  the  apologist  of  slave  aggres- 
sion, and  wishes  to  degrade  free  labor  and  abolish  freedom  !  But,  sir,  while  I 
can  look  with  becoming  pity  upon  ignorance  and  weakness,  I  hurl  from  me  with 
hissing  and  contempt  alike  the  whine  of  the  hypocrite  and  the  bluster  of  the 
demagogue.  I  see  spread  out  before  us  a  great  and  happy  country,  with  such 
institutions  as  Heaven  has  never  before  vouchsafed  to  fallen  man  ;  and  1  see, 
too,  that  when  once  they  are  riven  and  uprooted,  the  night  of  despotism,  in 
which  the  genius  of  evil  and  violence  and  anarchy  will  hold  her  awful  court,  will 
be  long  and  gloomy.  Oh,  may  our  glorious  tree  of  liberty  sink  its  roots  deeper 
in  the  soil  of  freedom,  and  extend  its  branches  until  all  the  oppressed  and  strick- 
en of  earth  may  find  beneath  it  shelter  and  repose  !  This  was  the  chosen  asy- 
lum of  the  genius  of  liberty  on  earth,  and  when  it  shall  be  banished  hence,  after 
coursing  over  the  worlds  desolate  waste  and  finding  no  rest  for  the  sole  of  its 
foot,  will  it  not  return,  fluttering  for  admission  like  the  dove  at  the  window  ofthe 
ark,  to  the  "bosom  of  its  father  and  its  God?" 


12 


P 
en'- 
pt. 
ve:> 
fat 

ID) 


I  am  not  one  of  those  who  assume  to  be  wiser  or  more  benevolent  than  weiP  . 
the  fathers  of  the  Constitution.    They  did  not  tremble  and  quake  because  slavei 
had  existence,  but  they  rose  above  the  influences  of  a  spurious  philanthropy,  an 
a  more  spurious  philosophy,  and  ^formed  a  confederacy  of  sovereign  equal: 
They  listened  not  to  that  fearful  and  ominous  cry  which  falls  harshly  on  raj  ea 
the  North  !  the  North  !  the  South  !  the  South  !  but  taught  us  alone  the  magi 
words,  "the  Union."    I  do  not  fear  soon  its  dissolution  in  form,  but  I  fear  fa 
more  its  dissolution  in  spirit.    That  union  ordained  of  Heaven,  which  lies 
the  foundation  of  society,  and  upholds  and  adorns  all  that  is  sacred  and  beaulifi 
in  our  social  system,  displays  not  its  value  or  its  moral  beauty,  because  man  an 
woman  are  bound  together  in  the  bonds  of  legalized  matrimony,  but  becaus 
they  fulfil  the  relations  which  a  wise  Providence  ordained,  and  mutually  height 
en  the  joys  and  alleviate  the  sorrows  which  attend  us  through  the  chequer^ 
ed  scenes  of  this  eventful  pilgrimage  ;  and  when  they  hopelessly  fail  to  discharge! 
these  reciprocal  duties,  and  mock  each  other  with  crimination  and  recrimina 
tion,  it  is  better  that  the  tie  which  binds  them  as  one  were  severed.    The  vaiut1 
of  this  Union  does  not  consist  in  the  binding  together  of  thirty  sovereign  State* 
with  hooks  of  steel  and  chains  of  adamant,  but  because  they  stand  united  togeth 
er  for  beneficent  purposes,  forming  one  great  and  shining  light — a  beacon  to  thi 
weary  and  tempest-tossed — a  terror  to  tyranny  and  usurpation — and  each  stii'  r°-' 
an  independent  star  in  the  constellation  of  political  hope.    But,  if  they  musjj 
stand  arrayed  against  each  other,  or  section  against  section — if,  instead  of  kinc 00 
offices  and  friendly  relations,  they  are  to  exchange  angry  reproaches  and  threat-' a!i 
ening  menaces,  that  moral  beauty  which  has  hitherto  attended  them  has  depart-" 
ed- — the  life  and  spirit  which  gave  birth  to  the  Union  has  ceased  to  animate  ifJ  3 
and  one  fatal  step  has  been  taken  upon  the  road  to  dissolution. 

Nothing  can  subvert  this  happy  Union  but  the  formation  of  sectional  parties  jne 
and  that,  if  successful,  will.    It  is  but  an  institution  of  man,  and  cannot  and?1 
ought  not  to  survive  the  successful  organization  of  factions.    If  a  sectional  Pret!1 
sident  and  Vice  President  should  be  elected  upon  an  irritating  sectional  issue,!1', 
and  a  sectional  Cabinet  be  formed — and  no  other  could  be — if  from  the  South,!11' 
no  Northern  representative  having  the  least  remains  ot  the  spirit  of  his  fathers;0' 
would  ever  enter  the  councils  of  such  a  Government:  and,  if  from  the  North,  noj6 
Southern  man  could  be  found  so  debased  as  to  come  into  one,  formed  upon  terms  ^ 
of  compromise  for  the  whole,  when  the  principles  had  been  subverted,  that  a  de- 
stroying faction  might  rise  upon  its  ruins.    As  a  Northern  man,  I  would  never 
cross  the  portals  of  a  Government  brought  into  power  upon  a  Southern  sectional 
issue,  and  I  would  animate  my  countrymen  to  flee  from  it  as  from  contagion. 
And  I  boldly  declare,  after  the  manner  of  Pitt,  that,  were  I  a  Southern  man,  asj 
I  am  a  Northern  one,  I  never  would  consent  to  recognise  for  a  moment  an  Admin- 
istration brought  into  power  upon  a  Northern  sectional  issue — never,  never,' 
never  !    This  attempt  to  create  sectional  parties  is  the  evil  tendency  of  the  times,  j 
and  he  who  seeks  to  foster  them,  be  his  purpose,  real  or  avowed,  what  it  may — j 
whether  to  minister  to  the  cravings  of  a  mean  ambition  or  to  gratify  a  fiendish 
lingering  revenge  ;  whether  he  has  been  laden  with  the  honors  of  the  people, 
and  pampered  at  their  treasury;  or  whether  he  be  the  incendiary,  whose  price 
of  purchase  is  less  than  thirty  pieces  of  silver — the  taint  of  treason  and  perfidy 
will  cling  to  him  in  after  times  like  the  poisoned  tunic  of  mythology ;  God  will- 
set  a  mark  upon  him,  as  upon  the  brow  of  the  first  murderer  of  man,  that  all  shall 
know  him  ;  out  it  will  be  a  mark  for  destruction,  and  not  for  safety,  and  society 
will  hunt  him  from  its  abodes  like  a  ferocious  and  venomous  beast.    He  will  not 
be  saved  by  the  counterfeited  cry  that  he  is  merely  opposing  the  extension  of 
slavery;  but,  like  the  murderous  captain  of  the  host,  the  vengeance  of  an  indigo 
nant  people  will  slay  him  at  the  very  horns  of  the  altar. 


13 


But  the  hour  of  the  greatest  danger  has  passed,  and  agitation  is  lowering  its 
ont.  It  has  well  near  completed  its  course  of  mischief;  it  has  discharged  its 
igrant  errand  ;  it  is  functus  officio.  Its  profane  and  unholy  temples  are  crumb- 
ng  to  their  downfall,  and  will  soon  tell  only  in  their  gloomy  ruins  of  a  period 
f  error,  folly,  and  delusion.  The  impious  priesthood  who  ministered  at  their 
Diluted  altars  have  been  disrobed  and  deposed,  and  their  deluded  and  idolatrous 
orshippers  are  about  returning  to  the  worship  of  their  fathers. 
Bui  my  colleague,  in  justifying  his  course,  tells  us  that  he  is  not  fully  a  free 
Tent,  having  been  instructed,  although  the  instructions  accord  with  his  judg- 
ient.  Therein  my  colleague  differs  widely  from  me,  for  I  am  a  free  agent  in 
eery  sense,  and  cannot  consent  to  stand  here  otherwise  ;  for  I  belong  to  the 
moo]  of  a  statesman,  venerated  by  every  friend  of  liberty,  who  believed  in 
taking  the  responsibility."  I  am  a  free  agent  to  do  as  duty  may  require,  and 
.11  ready  to  co*nt  personal  consequences  afterwards.  I  understand  where  I  am 
leaking  far  too  well  to  enter  upon  domestic  matters  here  ;  for  neither  this  body, 
or  any  of  its  members,  have  a  right  to  sit  in  judgment  upon  me.  I  shall  enter 
tto  no  explanations,  claim  no  merit,  or  accord  none,  so  far  as  supposed  instruc- 
ons  are  concerned  :  nor  shall  I  permit  myself  here  to  inquire  whether  they 
manate  from  a  majority  or  minority  of  the  people  :  whether  they  seek  to  violate 
le  spirit  of  the  compact,  .or  whether  they  come  from  those  who  believe  in 
ad  practice  the  doctrines  they  inculcate  ;  but,  at  the  proper  time  and  upon  the 
roper  occasion,  before  those  whose  servant  I  am,  I  tender  the  guantlet  to  him 
'ho  shall  choose  to  take  it  up,  and  I  hold  myself  in  readiness  to  justify  my  ae- 
on before  the  only  pure  and  true  source  of  power.  I  intend  to  know  whether  one 
in  resist  this  mischievous  and  licentious  spirit  of  sectional  agitators,  and  those  who 
3rve  as  sappers  and  miners  of  the  Constitution,  and  survive.  I  have  no  fear  that  I 
aall  not  be  most  triumphantly  sustained,  when  the  storm  has  swept  by.  Nor 
rould  I  change  a  course  so  clearly  demanded  by  considerations  of  duty,  if  I 
new  i  was  to  be  overwhelmed.  It  is  better  that  an  humble  individual  should 
erish,  if  in  his  struggle  he  should  arouse  the  attention  of  the  people  to  the 
angers  which  threaten  them.  Sir,  I  stand  upon  the  watch-tower  of  liberty, 
mere  my  fathers  stood  before  me.  and  I  invoke  the  spirit  of  my  country's  Con- 
itution.  Like  Burke,  when  speaking  of  the  controversy  with  the  American 
olonies,  I  stand  not  here  to  demonstrate  points  of  law,  but  to  quiet  agitation. 
,et  the  storm  howl  on — let  the  battlements  rock  if  they  will — let  faction  toss 
nd  roar  and  hurl  her  impotent  arrows  of  detraction,  and  I  will  laugh  them  to 
2orn,  for  I  did  not  take  up  my  position  without  counting  the  cost.  If  I  had 
parted  momentary  elevation  or  personal  eclat,  I  might  have  cried  loudest  among 
favery  agitators,  and  rode  high  upon  the  whirlwind,  if  I  could  not  have  directed 
le  storm.  But  I  have  choson  to  do  my  duty  and  to  meet  the  responsibilities  in- 
idenl  to  my  position  ;  and  in  my  vacant  and  solitary  hours  I  shall  feel  that  grati- 
cation  which  a  consciousness  of  rectitude  and  a  firm  discharge  of  duty  alone 
an  give,  and  which  the  world  cannot  take  away.  I  have  never  favored  the  in- 
titution  of  slavery  or  its  extension,  either  immediately  or  remotely,  and  whoever 
harges  or  insinuates  the  reverse,  originates  a  base  and  deliberate,  and,  unless 
e  is  ignorant  of  my  sentiments,  a  wilful  calumny.  Equally  untrue  is  it  that 
ny  one  has  proposed  to  legislate  for  the  extension  of  slavery.  It  has  often  been 
sserted,  knowing  its  falsity,  and  is  persisted  in,  doubtless  under  that  questiona- 
le  axiom  in  morals,  that  a  falsehood  persevered  in  is  equivalent  to  the  truth, 
ly  habits,  thoughts,  feelings,  education,  instinct,  nay,  my  very  prejudices,  are 
igainst  slavery ;  but  I  would  not  interfere  in  what  is  no  concern  of  mipe,  to  ob- 
iin  a  greater  evil  and  no  good.  The  South  have  simply  asked  that  they  may 
^e  left  to  their  sovereign  rights  as  States,  and  to  such  rights  in  the  Territory  as 
tie  ;egal  tribunals  may  decide  are  theirs  under  the  Constitution.    They  do  not 


14 


ask  any  legislation  in  favor  of  slavery,  or  its  extension  or  diffusion,  but  protes 
against  its  agitation  in  the  Federal  Government,  or  any  legislation  by  Congres 
upon  the  subject ;  and  in  this  the  South  are  right,  and  I  for  one  shall  stand  b 
them  and  sustain  them,  let  who  will  cry  and  clamor,  or  come  what  may,  so  Ion. 
as  they  stand  upon  a  ground  so  clearly  reasonable  and  constitutional  as  this.  ] 
is  urged,  as  another  reason  for  legislating  against  slavery  in  this  Territory,  b 
my  colleague,  that,  unless  we  do,  it  may  shock  the  tender  susceptibilities  c 
Mexico.  I  certainly  shall  not  call  in  question  the  force  of  this  very  singula 
authority ;  but,  not  proposing  to  draw  lessons  of  political  economy  or  pubji 
morals  from  that  nation  just  now,  I  will  simply  suggest  that  if  she  has  any  sur 
plus  benevolence  she  had  better  invest  it  in  the  elevation  of  her  own  semi-bar 
barou?  people  and  her  cruel  and  degrading  system  of  peonage.  Let  her  plucl 
out  the  beam  in  her  own  eye  before  she  discourses  concerning  the  mote  in  ours 
And  merry  England,  too,  with  her  starving  people  perishing  for  bread,  wil 
doubtless  bewail  it.  An  eminent  British  poet  has  exultingly  sung  that  "  slave; 
cannot  breathe  in  England  ;"  and  if  he  had  added  that  millions  of  her  own  mis 
called  freemen,  to  say  nothing  of  groaning  and  oppressed  Ireland,  found  the  pro 
cess  of  respiration  difficult,  by  reason  of  her  system  of  murderous  inequality,  h(' 
would  have  given  us  a  practical  and  interesting  but  melancholy  truth  at  the  ex 
pense  of  poetic  beauty. 

But  why  press,  in  ail  times  and  upon  all  occasions,  this  process  of  restriction 
My  colleague  admits  that  the  laws  of  that  Territory,  as  it  came  to  us,  prohibited 
slavery  ;  which  he  says  was  abolished  by  the  decree  of  her  President,  again  bv 
an  act  of  Congress,  and  yet  again  by  the  Constitution.  Most  lawyers  in  the 
free  and  many  in  the  slave  States  hold  that  the  laws  prohibiting  slavery  remain 
the  law  of  the  land  until  changed  by  competent  legislation,  and  my  colleague  hag 
often  so  argued  and  insisted.  I  have  already  shown  that  there  was  no  intention 
or  desire  to  legislate  for  their  change  even  by  the  South.  Besides,  he  admits 
that  slave  labor  is  not  demanded  there,  nor  white  labor  excluded,  either  by  cli 
mate,  soil,  or  productions  ;  and  yet  he,  and  those  who  act  with  him,  will  consent 
to  the  passage  of  no  bill,  unless  it  excludes  slavery  over  again,  which  they  argue 
is  excluded  by  three  laws  of  man,  and  three  of  Heaven  ;  and  they  insist,  tooJ 
which  is  the  fact,  that  the  people  there,  so  far  as  they  have  spoken,  are  opposed 
to  having  the  institution  among  them.  Was  ever  absurdity  carried  further,  or 
more  pertinaciously  enforced  ?  But  I  am  asked,  if  slavery  is  already  excluded; 
by  law,  and  prohibited  by  natural  impediments,  why  object  to  the  restriction  ? 
I  object  to  it  because  one-half  of  the  States  of  this  Union  have  solemnly  pro- 
tested against  it,  and  believe  it  will  be  a  sentence  of  condemnation  against  them, 
and  I  have  sufficient  regard  for  their  wishes  to  abstain  from  an  act  so  offensive 
to  them  bringing  no  practical  good  ;  and  I  object  too  because  the  true  principles 
of  self-government  forbid  that  one  community  shall  legislate  for  another.  The! 
whole  truth  may  as  well  be  told.  Politicians  have  invested  their  whole  capital 
in  this  Provisoism,  and  although  the  dividends  have  been  far  less  than  was  an- 
ticipated, and  the  stock  is  sadly  depreciated,  they  hope  to  keep  it  alive  until  they 
can  sell  out  without  suffering  a  total  loss. 

But  do  we  not  all  see  that  it  is  better  to  meet  this  agitation  now  than  here- 
after — "at  the  door-sill  than  the  hearth-stone."  Sir,  I  understand  too  well  the 
purposes  for  which  this  agitation  originated  and  is  prosecuted,  and  the  law  which 
governs  all  kindred  questions,  to  give  heed  to  the  professions,  however  often  ex- 
pressed, that  they  are  merely  endeavouring  to  prevent  by  law  the  further  exten- 
sion of  slavery,  though  I  admit  that  many  who  act  with  them  are  sincere  in  their 
professions,  and  by  no  means  include  them  in  the  remarks  I  extend  to  others.  I 
would  meet  it  before  its  poisonous  roots  have  sunk  deeper  in  the  soil  of  liberty,, 
or  its  upas  branches  spread  wider.    You  may  this  day  organize  every  inch  of 


15 


territory  held  by  the  United  States,  and  engraft  upon  it  the  restriction  ;  to-morrow 
uhe  leaders  in  this  same  interest  will  clamor  on  as  they  have  already  commenced 
(for  its  abolition  in  the  District  of  Columbia  ;  and,  this  being  accomplished,  they 
jj will  openly  and  directly  assail  the  rights  of  sovereign  States,  which  they  have 
theretofore  done  by  indirection,  and  their  innocent  dupes  will  be  borne  along  with 
'  them.  Whoever  knew  the  ferocity  of  a  tiger  tamed  by  a  taste  of  blood,  or  ?.  fanatic 
i or  a  demagogue,  or  a  hypocrite  satisfied  by  yielding  to  his  demand  ?  And.  although 
ithere  are  many  who  have  now  no  intention  of  proceeding  to  such  extremities, 
■they  will  be  subject  to  the  laws  which  control  such  questions,  and  be  swept  along 
2witn  the  general  current.  But  a  few  years  since  this  disturbing  and  ferocious 
:* spirit  of  abolition  reared  its  hydra-head  in  the  halls  of  our  National  Legislature, 
r|but  it  was  met  by  manly  resistance  and  put  down.  Again,  restless  as  the  unclean 
^ spirit  of  old,  it  returns  with  others  more  wicked  than  itself  to  render,  unless 
;': speedily  put  to  flight,  the  last  state  worse  than  the  first. 

I     My  colleague  has  told  us,  in  conclusion,  as  he  has  often  before,  what  New 
?ifYork  will  do  concerning  this  question — that  she  will  not  consent  to  the  extension, 
(of  slavery,  and  that  by  no  act  of  hers  can  it  be  done.    While  I  acknowledge  his 
right  to  his  opiuions  and  speculations  upon  the  subject  of  what  will  be  the  course 
of  New  York,  I  shall  claim  at  least  an  equal  privilege  of  expressing  my  own  of 
what  she  will  not  do  also.    The  gift  of  prophecy  is  not  mine,  and  I  can  only 
I  judge  of  the  future  by  the  past  and  the  present,  and  the  general  laws  which  con- 
Erol  human  agencies  ;  and,  however  much  the  reverse  maybe  desired  by  despe- 
•ajrate  politicians,  in  my  judgment  New  lork,  though  occasionally  swayed  from 
I  her  great  purposes  by  the  mutations  of  political  parties  and  the  efforts  of  com- 
jtjbined  factions,  will  content  herself  with  that  which  belongs  to  her,  and  treat  with 
^becoming  respect — the  rights  of  her  sister  States.    She  has  abundant  elements 
^within  herself  to  employ  her  choicest  energies,  and  ,she  will  devote  them  to  the 
^1  still  higher  improvement  of  her  own  internal  condition,  and  to  elevate  yet  more 
;!sJher  three  millions  of  happy  people.    Though  the  sun  of  her  political  prosperity 
may  occasionally  pass  beneath  a  cloud,  the  obscuration  will  be  but  momentary, 
and"  the  eclipse  not  total.    She  will  soon  shine  forth  in  her  meridian  splendor, 
diffusing  among  her  sister  States,  from  her  lofty  eminence,  her  genial  ip.ftue-nces 
of  light,  hope,  and  joy — the  proudest  star  in  the  constellation  of  political  glory. 
•:  She  will  leave  all  puerile  sectional  agitations  to  the  machinations  of  the  weak 
and  designing  and  those  who  traffic  in  the  disturbance  of  the  public  peace.  Her 
isons  will  stand  f.gain,  as  they  stood  in  the  dark  days  of  our  Revolutionary ^strug- 
gle,  in  the  second  war  of  independence,  and  again  in  a  war  with  a  neighboring 
nation,  by  the  side  of  the  brave  spirits  of  the  South,  as  when  they  shed  their 
choicest  blood  in  defence  of  her  own  fromier  ;  and,  as  then,  she  will  scorn  to 
inquire  whether  their  domestic  policy  is  more  or  less  wise  than  her  own.  She 
will  stand  by  the  principles  non-interference  and  the  Constitution^  and  will 
spurn  all  attempts  at  sectional  policy  and  disunion.    She  will  blot  no  stars  nor:: 
the  constellation.    Her  pride  will  reach  throughout  the  Union,  and  her  Republic 
be  ocean  bound. 

What  motive  have  I  to  disregard  her  wishes,  or  disobey  her  mandate  ?  What 
have  I  to  ask  of  the  South  but  the  merest  justice  ?  W7hat  else  can  she  have  in 
store  for  me  ?  Whatever  I  have  of  public  character  or  station  is  the  generous 
gift  of  my  own  great  State.  From  early  childhood  I  have  been  nursed  in  her 
lap,  and  in  manhood  she  led  me  from  humble  private  avocations,  through  various 
honors,  to  the  highest  station  her  sovereignty  could  confer.  There,  next  to 
Heaven,  are  my  choicest  offerings  due  :  there  shall  my  first  vows  be  paid.  My 
destiny  is  in  her  keeping;  there  my  best  affections  cluster  ;  there  arise  my  live- 
liest aspirations  :  there  all  my  hopes  are  concentred  :  there  have  I  lived  ;  there 
reoose  the  remains  of  my  beloved  dead,  and  when  it  shall  please  Heaven,  to  call 


16 


me  hence,  I  would  rest  from  the  agitations  of  an  eventful  life  in  her  peaceful 
bosom.  Her  very  name  is  dear  to  me.  Her  character  and  her  institutions  dearer 
still.  Her  political  escutcheon  is  yet  unstained  and  spotless.  Although  she  has 
nourished  and  brought  up  children,  and  they  have  rebelled  against  her,  her  degra- 
dation has  not  been  completed.  The  cup  which  had  been  drugged  for  her  hu- 
miliation by  a  paracidal  hand,  in  mercy  was  permitted  to  pass,  and  she  has  not 
been  left  to  sanction  by  her  sovereign  voice  the  attempt  to  desecrate  the  Presi- 
tial  office  by  pandering  to  the  bad  passions  of  a  section.  That  she  may  long  be 
spared  from  this  base  infliction,  whether  at  the  instance  of  one  of  her  own  de- 
generate sons  or  another,  I  invoke  the  universal  prayer  of  our  common  country. 


Date  Due 

1    APR  20  "K 

'Mi  1  3  f2 

■m- 

1  3  '21 

A 

Mug27'34 

JUL  8  '4 

P 

L.  B.  Cat.  No.  1 137 

D619W 


71569 


Duke  University  Libraries 


DOOi 

$81  ( 

)847 

